Current and Historical Emergency Notification Systems
The emergency broadcast system (“EBS”) was in existence from the early 1960s until 1997. The EBS, although intended as a national alert system, was predominantly used by state and local governments to disseminate emergency information to persons who may be affected. Generally only a nationwide activation of the EBS was required to be relayed by broadcast stations (the FCC made local emergencies and weather advisories optional). Broadcast stations generally included radio and television stations; however, many stations were classified as non-participating.
The EBS was replaced in 1997 by the emergency alert system (“EAS”) which has the same primary purpose of disseminating emergency information through broadcast television and radio stations. The EAS has very limited capabilities providing only for the transmission of text and audio—no images can be transmitted. Although all broadcast stations and multichannel video programming distributors are required to maintain equipment to decode and encode the EAS signals, some are excepted out of the requirement as non-participating stations by the FCC. Even if the television or radio station is otherwise required to maintain the EAS equipment, stations are allowed to opt out of relaying severe weather or child abduction alerts (AMBER Alerts).
The EAS and EBS systems have several inherent problems. The notifications were relatively limited in information and had no capability for providing more than text and audio. This severely hampers the effectiveness of the notification.
The notifications had to be dispatched to a relatively large area such as an entire metropolitan statistical area (“MSA”) which, according to the 2000 census, averages over 600 k residents each. This further limited the current emergency notification systems because the system was only employed for notifications that affected some significant portion of the MSA.
The notifications only reached those residents actively watching a traditional broadcast station in real time or listening to a local radio station. With the advent of the satellite radio and MP3 players, fewer people are listening to local radio stations. Even if people generally listened to local radio stations, there was a relatively small chance any particular person would be listening when the notification was actually delivered.
These limitations highlight the inability of current systems to effectively: target a specific area affected by an emergency; convey relevant and detailed information regarding the emergency and any suggested responses; and convey the message to individuals who are in the general vicinity of the emergency.
Billboards and Other Signage
According to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, billboards and similar signage are the oldest mass advertising medium (having some of the first standardized posters at least as early as the 19th century). There are an estimated 400,000 billboards in the United States. Traditional billboards have a static image and are positioned in relatively high traffic areas to increase the chances that more individuals will pass the signs and thereby view the advertisement. Early in the industries history, the signs were painted directly onto the billboard. This was later replaced by printed paper pasted on the billboard and more recently to computer-generated images on plastic substrates. The most recent evolution has been to digital billboards.
Digital billboards (officially named “changeable electronic variable message signs” or “CEVMS”) mark a huge advancement in outdoor advertising and signage because they enable a changeable message/image, drastically reduce the cost of changing the message/image (in some cases even enabling the remote changing of the message/image), and permit multiple messages/images to be cycled at preset intervals (e.g. seven or eight seconds).
With the advent of digital billboards and similar dynamic signs, there has been a push to use such signs for disseminating AMBER Alerts and FBI mug shots. However, the implementation has been spotty at best and requires individual operator “buy in” and intervention. Traditionally, a particular operator will manually insert one or more FBI mug shots into the normal advertising cycle. More recently, Daktronics® (a registered trademark of Daktronics, Inc.) has provided a system by which users of its digital signs who also use its hosted sign management system can opt-in to permitting AMBER Alerts to pre-empt regularly cycling advertising; however, this is only for one brand of digital sign and it requires the operators to be using Daktronics's proprietary hosted sign management system. If the operator is using an onsite sign management system (e.g. not hosted on Daktronics's servers) or does not have Daktronics signs, the operator must manually receive and post the AMBER Alert.
A further limitation is even Daktronics's solution does not provide access to the digital signs by local or state governmental entities for other types of emergency or warning messages. Additionally, the Daktronics's solution does not provide the AMBER Alert system access to particular digital signs—only access to large groups of geographically related signs (e.g. for an MSA or an entire city, county, or even state).
In view of the above shortcomings of existing emergency notification systems, there is a need for an improved emergency notification system utilizing digital signs across disparate manufacturer's signs and that can be used by governmental entities to disseminate all types of emergency, threat, and warning information.